Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Misc Reading - Week of Feb 15

Selected reading from the week of Feb 15 2010.
  • All Things Digital muses about the future of Hunch, a site that attempts to use machine learning algorithms to make better suggestions to users. Interesting for sure. [link]
  • Greg Mankiw recommends a memoir by a physicist who worked on Wall Street. [link, the book link - My Life as a Quant: Reflections on Physics and Finance]
  • Steve Sack's cartoon on the Republican Party double-speak on fiscal stimulus [link]
  • Steve Breen's cartoon on, again, the Republican Party and the stimulus conundrum [link]
  • Paul Kedrosky links to Bill Gates' TED talk on nuclear energy [link]
  • Paul Kedrosky on the Simon-Ehrlich bet. Eh? Yes. [link]
  • Ritholtz links to Matt Taibi's excoriation of Wall Street bonuses. Bailout turns into bonus bonanza for Wall Street. Gee, why do people dislike bankers so much?? [link]
  • Paul Kedrosky reminisces with fondness his run-ins with airport security. Read it to believe it. [link]
  • I haven't read Data Flow, and I haven't read Data Flow 2. Maybe I should. [from the Infosthetics blog - link]
  • Co-workers stealing credit for your work? Surely not. Evil HR Lady ruminates. [link]
  • You must really have a credible, visible, and effective way of handling customer enhancements. [link]
  • Why don't airlines charge for the compressed air you breath on board a flight? Not too far from that. [link from the ProductMarketing.com blog]
  • At some companies, crappy customer service is actually the norm [link from OnProductManagement.net]
  • If you are an Oracle developer who also works with maps, you just have to get this SQL Developper extension [link]
  • xkcd.com on honor societies. How big a loser do you have to be to want to join one?? [link]
  • A VC tells us the PV of FVs [link]
  • The Heath brothers informed us that their latest book, Switch, is out, and available real cheap from Amazon.com [link]
  • Cliches used as anti-cliches? Seth Godin explains. [link]
  • The zero rupee note 'nudges' corrupt babus into honesty? Let's hope so. [link]
  • Asia's largest literary event is in Jaipur. [link]
  • Steve Jobs really got this one wrong - Netbooks vs. the iPad [link from the Flex888 site - who else?]
  • Longish article from Charles Hooper's site on how CPUs are either 100% busy or 0% busy performing a task. There is no middle ground!!! [link]
  • The movie 3 Idiots is fairly idiotic on several levels. Maybe that's why it's a big hit. This cartoon strip does a fantastic job of telling us why. [link]
  • Google lives 10 years in the future. Cringely tells us why. [link]
  • And to think MySpace was hot just a couple of years back. Recall the reference to it in the movie IronMan? [link]
  • Scott Kelby on HDR photography. You have an opinion or not. No 'High Def Ranting' allowed. Ok - that was lame. [link]
  • Did you read the book, Presentation Zen? Well Presentation Zen Design is out. Go read. [link]
  • People who spend without thinking really need to get their heads examined. Science says so now. [link from Kedrosky.com]
  • The first chapter of the Heath brothers' new book, Switch, is available for free from their web site. Register to read it in a nicely formatted PDF form.[link]

© 2010, Abhinav Agarwal. All rights reserved.